Friday, March 21, 2008

The Republican Right’s Moonie Problem

A number of folks — notably Ezra Klein and Glenn Greenwald
— have already pointed out quite adroitly that while the media have had
little compunction about whipping up a phony controversy about Barack
Obama’s "pastor problem", there’s almost nothing that white evangelical
pastors can say that might bring down similar approbation. John McCain’s
"spiritual advisers" Rod Parsley and John Hagee really are only the tip
of the iceberg when it comes to this.

As Glenn puts it:

The phrases "anti-American" and
"America-haters" are among the most barren and manipulative in our
entire political lexicon, but whatever they happen to mean on any given
day, they easily encompass people who believe that the U.S. deserved the
9/11 attacks, devastating hurricanes and the like. Yet when are people
like Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, Inhofe and other white Christian
radicals ever described as anti-American or America-hating extremists?
Never — because white Christian evangelicals who tie themselves to the
political Right are intrinsically patriotic.

But the Republican right’s biggest problem with having "America
haters" as leading exponents of movement conservatism is someone who not
only has claimed to be a spiritual mentor but is also a major financier
of Republican causes: the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

And yet simultaneously, the largesse he spreads about the
conservative movement has won him all kinds of friends, influence, and
defenders, if not followers. Certainly, there is no one in the
mainstream media who bothers to mention this, let alone play endless
tape loops. Here are some of the things Moon has said over the years, as Gorenfeld has detailed:

The whole world is in my hand, and I
will conquer and subjugate the world. I will go beyond the boundary of
the U.S., opening up the toll gate, reaching out to the end of the
world. I will go forward, piercing through everything …

When we are in our battle against the whole nation of the U.S. — if
you are truly in love with this nation, and if you love this nation more
than anyone else, this nation will come into God’s possession, and
Satan will have nothing to do with it. … With that as the bullet, we can
smash the whole world.

Individualism is what God hates most, and Satan likes best.

God likes the idea of a monarchy,
because it removes the cycles of election after election which can
obscure the focus and direction of the nation.

The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the whole world.

The time will come when, without my seeking it, that my words must serve as law.

We will be able to amend laws, articles of constitution, if we wish to do so.

Telling a lie becomes a sin if you tell
it to take advantage of a person, but if you tell a lie to do a good
thing … that is not a sin … Even God tells lies very often.

I have met many famous, so-called
famous, Senators and Congressmen; but to my eyes they are nothing. They
are weak and helpless. We will win the battle. This is our dream, our
project. But shut your mouth tight.

After the demise of communism and the
destruction of democracy, all that will remain will be the True Family
and True Children system, centered upon True Parents [Moon's title for
himself and his wife]. That is what is happening now.

America may boast of its virtues to the
world, but look, democracy is now reaching the end of its rope. People
thought democracy is the final anchor of the free world, but it is
reaching its end. So what is left? America has been telling the weaker
nations that they have to accept democracy, forcing them to receive
so-called democracy. But look at America. It is rotten, top to bottom.
There is nothing to be proud of, not their way of walking or talking or
thinking.

When you hear me putting America down,
your ears are not pleased. But if we continue living in this hub of the
satanic world, this New York-DC area, we are in the darkness.

When Clinton and his policies come into
being, the first opposition must come from Christianity. But
Christianity has lost its center and its hope. For that reason, they
have lost their power, and that is why Clinton was allowed to win the
election. It was the failure of Christianity. This nation which is
supposed to be Christian has been turned into almost a model nation for
Satan, losing everything precious. People are losing their own identity,
losing brotherhood, losing their own parents, and losing God. This
nation has really become a playground for Satan.

Those "patriotic" conservatives have not fled screaming from Moon for
saying these kinds of things. They have not denounced him. They have
not even discussed them — nor, for that matter, have the media.

No, they not only continue to sturdily defend him and his many operations — most notably the Washington Times
Moon’s newspaper, which has employed many leading conservative pundits —
they positively embrace him, mostly because of his money. The most
significant of these has been his embrace by the Bush family.

George H.W. Bush has appeared at major Moon-sponsored events and taken large sums of his money. Neil Bush
has toured with him and also enjoys his considerable largesse. And
President Bush has gone so far as to name a former Unification Church
leader — Josette Sheeran — as his undersecretary of state for economic,
business, and agriculture affairs.

But have the mainstream media dealt with any of this? Er, no. In
fact, when the subject of the Bush clan’s ties to Moon have come up,
people like the New York Times’ David Brooks — who got his start as a
pundit at the Washington Times — call it a "bizarre assertion" and an instance of the "paranoid style in American politics."

Obviously, you don’t get to watch Moon’s "hateful" and
"anti-American" remarks being replayed endlessly on CNN and Fox, nor
watch every media outlet in the nation obsess over whether Republicans
should repudiate him.

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.